Antibiotic resistant bacterial infections, including Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), are increasing in prevalence world-wide at alarming rates. In particular, community-acquired MRSA infections, often presenting as serious skin infections in otherwise healthy individuals, have become a world-wide epidemic problem and warrant attention for therapeutic intervention. While MRSA was once mainly considered a hospital-acquired infection, the emergence of new strains has resulted in serious skin infections in otherwise healthy individuals. Thus there is a need for methods and reagents for increasing the effectiveness in treating MRSA as well as other bacterial infections, and defining the mechanisms that govern the activation and regulation of the immune response to MRSA as well as other bacterial infections is clinically important and could lead to the discovery of much needed rational targets for therapeutic intervention.